The countdown is on.  Ten (10!!) days to “wheels up”! That means fewer days until we actually leave Kasana.

For various reasons, this has been a very long and hard season.  On the heels of 5 months of training that rocked the family and school boat, Jarid has been faced with several administrative challenges, particularly as New Hope settles in to their new organizational chart.

Would you pray for us?  We are tired, worn out, burned out, and maybe a bit raw from all that has transpired since we moved to Kasana.  I suspect we’ll need to drag ourselves on to the plane on the 18th…stupidly hoping to rest up enough on the flights to get us through those following two weeks.

When we land in Chicago on the 19th, we’ll be met by Jarid’s parents and we’ll spend one night before heading off to Colorado.  Once we arrive there, we’ll ditch the kids with my parents to head off for one night to celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary.  When we return, we’ll roll up our sleeves and begin sorting, purging, and packing as we prepare to move my parents (and our belongings) to Boise, Idaho!  Their house in Windsor is under contract and should close a few days after we arrive.

Once they are packed up and on the road, we will head north, leaving on the 1st of October.  While we still have some details to work out for portions of our trip, this is our general (and tentative) itinerary over those next five months:

Sept 19: Land in Chicago

Sept 22: Fort Collins (Discovery Fellowship)

Oct 1: Dickinson, ND

Oct 2-4: New Rockford, ND

Oct 5-7: Wadena, MN (Epicenter Church)

Oct 8-10: Rhinelander, WI

Oct 11-12: Superior, WI (Hope Church)

Oct 13-Nov 4: Dickinson, ND (EBC!!!)

Nov 5-8: Cincinnati, OH (Trauma Competent Care training)

Nov 12-Dec 5: Boise, ID

Dec 6-27: Bozeman, MT

Dec 28-Jan 9: Colorado

Jan 10-14: Albany, NY (Arise Church)

Jan 15-Feb 9: Marco Island, FL

Feb 10-Feb 13: Family reset

Feb 13: Fly back to Uganda!

By the time we arrive back in Uganda, we will have at least 5000 driving miles, and at least 11 flights.  This is our first real furlough or “home assignment”, and I’m sure we’ll learn a lot about what to do and what not to do!

For now, our time is consumed with packing, purging, meetings, and saying goodbyes.  Some of the goodbyes are really just “See you when we return!”, and some of them are “We may not see you again until eternity!”.   Neither of them are much fun.

The packing and purging is hard.  Even though we sold nearly everything we had (by western standards) to move to Uganda, we still have a lot of stuff.  So as we prepare to leave, we are daily confronted by the issue of stuff and the heart check of where we have stored up our treasure.

Even as we prepare to live on the other side of the ocean for five months, we are confronted with heart issues.  As we look forward to all of the fun things, the convenient things, the yummy things we’ll get to experience and have access to in the States, we also have to remember the price tag that comes with those things.  Living in the States is EXPENSIVE!!  This is particularly true with our food issues.  How do we work to combat heart issues on both sides of the ocean?  Are we being good stewards of our belongings in Uganda?  Are we being good stewards of the financial resources of those who support us?

That said, we do covet your prayers during this season of (continual?) transition!  While the goodbyes are hard on this side, we are anticipating with great joy the fellowship we will experience on that side of the ocean!